Below is the Hardball link and transcript of the Jim Webb and Harris Miller debate on Hardball from Thursday, June 8 for those who could not see the video. Here is the link to the Hardball video which is 8 minutes and 8 seconds long:
Here is the link to the Washington Post article that Jim Webb quotes from that he wrote in 2002 when he is discussing foreign policy and the Iraq war:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A34847-2002Sep3?language=printer
I would like for everyone to watch this video or read the transcript below as objectively as possible but I will ask everyone to ask themselves at least one very important question after watching this: In a post 9/11 world, which candidate is the most credible and best qualified to run against George Allen on the key issues of foreign policy and the Iraq war?
Jim Webb is the clear winner and he will have much more credibility than Harris Miller would as the Democratic nominee to challenge George Allen in my opinion. George Allen will be a very serious player for President in 2008 and he is an extreme ideologue (Allen has already been endorsed for President in 2008 by Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh) so it is very important that the most electable candidate wins the Virginia primary on Tuesday!
Please forward this on, especially to Virginia Democrats before they vote in the June 13 primary, because the best vote is an informed vote and because this Senate race will have a huge impact on the 2008 Presidential race!
Mitch Dworkin
http://www.securingamerica.com/
http://securingamerica.com/webb
Gen. Wes Clark's endorsement of Jim Webb against George Allen
http://www.webbforsenate.com/
Jim Webb for Senate website
http://webb.bluestatedigital.com/page/s/join
Sign up to receive Jim Webb for Senate campaign E Mails!
https://secure.webbforsenate.com/page/contribute
Please contribute what you can to help Jim Webb!
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13222787/
'Hardball with Chris Matthews' for June 8
Read the transcript to the Thursday showUpdated: 9:47 a.m. CT June 9, 2006
Guests: James Jeffrey, Harris Miller, James Webb, David Remnick
MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.
This coming Tuesday, Virginia Democrats will decide who they want to try to beat Senator George Allen for the Senate. Not long ago, Allen was thought to be a shoo-in for reelection and likely on his way to a 2008 presidential run. But not anymore.
Former Navy secretary Jim Webb and businessman Harris Miller have turned the heat up on Allen, and tonight, they+óGé¼-£ll turn it up on each other right here on HARDBALL.
Gentlemen, welcome and let+óGé¼-£s begin.
Mr. Miller, nice to meet you. Let+óGé¼-£s start here with a simple question. The president said today that catching Zarqawi, killing him, +óGé¼+ôwill turn the tide against the bad guys in Iraq.+óGé¼-¥ Is he right or wrong, Mr. Miller?
HARRIS MILLER (D), VA. SENATE CANDIDATE: He is wrong, unfortunately. I congratulate our military for killing this evil man, but at the end of the day, Chris, we still have a disaster in Iraq. Over 30 civilians were killed today. We had to bring more troops into Iraq last week. We are far from solving this problem. We need to get our troops home and we need to fire Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
MATTHEWS: Mr. Webb?
JAMES WEBB (D), VA. SENATE CANDIDATE: I first of all look at this as somebody who has been on a battlefield and, you know, if somebody is trying to kill you, the best thing you can do is kill him first. So I think this is a great thing tactically.
MATTHEWS: Will it turn the tides?
WEBB: It+óGé¼-£s a great thing tactically, but I don+óGé¼-£t think it affects the overall strategic error of having been in there. Maybe it will help us start to get out, but I don+óGé¼-£t think in the strategic terms it makes a lot of difference.
MATTHEWS: Should we have gone in? Would you have voted in October of 2002, Mr. Webb, to authorize the war?
WEBB: I clearly would not have. If you read the +óGé¼+ôWashington Post+óGé¼-¥ piece I wrote in September 2002, I was saying don+óGé¼-£t do it.
MATTHEWS: Mr. Miller, would you have voted to authorize?
MILLER: I didn+óGé¼-£t have access to all the intelligence that Senator Allen and other senators had.
MATTHEWS: No, no. Right now, looking backward, would you have voted to act?
MILLER: Looking back, no. Looking back, no.
MATTHEWS: No.
MILLER: If I had access to that intelligence now.
MATTHEWS: OK, was it a mistake to go to Iraq, Mr. Miller?
MILLER: I+óGé¼-£m sorry. I didn+óGé¼-£t hear you, Chris.
MATTHEWS: Was it a mistake to go to Iraq?
MILLER: Yes, sir.
MATTHEWS: Was it a mistake to go to Iraq?
WEBB: It was and I said so at the time.
MATTHEWS: OK, let+óGé¼-£s move on. You seem to agree completely on that.
Is there any difference between your position and his, Mr. Webb?
WEBB: I think I arrived at it far earlier than Harris Miller did. I think this is recent for him.
MATTHEWS: Mr. Miller, when did you decide, in your mind, in your heart, that we shouldn+óGé¼-£t have gone to Iraq? At the time that we went were you cheering that decision or opposing it instinctively?
MILLER: I wasn+óGé¼-£t opposing it instinctively because I believed General Colin Powell when he said that there was a plan to deal with the post-war effort. In fact, that was a lie. We were misled by the president. It became clear within three or four months it was a huge mistake.
MATTHEWS: But I+óGé¼-£m not clear then. Did you think it was wrong to go to Iraq or you just didn+óGé¼-£t like what happened when we got there? Did you think it was wrong to put American troops into a third world country where we+óGé¼-£d have to occupy it, just as a principle? Did you think that was wrong?
MILLER: Yes, that was wrong, but that wasn+óGé¼-£t what we were told. We were told there were weapons of mass destruction, which was a lie, and we were told there was a plan to get out of Iraq within three months. Both of those were lies, Chris.
MATTHEWS: But you believed them.
MILLER: Because I didn+óGé¼-£t have access to the intelligence.
MATTHEWS: Did you have access to any history books?
MILLER: Yes, I have access to history books.
MATTHEWS: Well, did you think that the United States going into a third world country would be cheered? Did you believe that Howard Fineman was right when he was kidding about the happy Iraqi scenario. You believe it? You believed that they would cheer our arrival?
MILLER: No, I didn+óGé¼-£t believe that, but what I believed is that the U.S. had a plan and I was briefed by people from the State Department who had clearance that said there was a plan to get the Iraqi troops to control their own country after the way. Clearly, Iraq is a quagmire. We have to get out of there. The question is now, Chris, what do we do going forward? And at the end of the day, we have to get our troops out of Iraq as quickly as possible.
MATTHEWS: OK, good.
Let me ask you, Mr. Webb, did you believe that we were wrong to go in regardless of what happened there?
WEBB: I wrote in the +óGé¼+ôWashington Post+óGé¼-¥ piece before+óGé¼GÇ¥five months before we went in that this was not simply about WMDs, it was about turning our troops into terrorist targets, and that there was not an exit strategy because the principal architects of this war did not intend for us to leave.
MATTHEWS: OK, let+óGé¼-£s ask about+óGé¼GÇ¥let+óGé¼-£s go a domestic issue, immigration.
Mr. Miller, do you support a tamper-proof I.D. card for people in this country so that employers will know to hire them or not depending on their legality?
MILLER: Yes, in fact, I worked with Congress when Ron Mazzoli proposed that in 1981. We also need to have very tough employer sanctions, including sending employers to jail if they continue to hire people who are not here without work authorization. That+óGé¼-£s why people come to this country illegal, Chris, to get jobs. Unless we penalize the employers, people are going to continue to come.
MATTHEWS: Mr. Webb, do you agree with everything he said?
WEBB: I would agree that we should be using tamper-proof I.D. cards.
MATTHEWS: Do you believe in punishing employers who hire people illegally?
WEBB: That is very a complex question because of the whole range of employers that are involved. Certainly large employers you could have sanctions.
MATTHEWS: Why would you let somebody walk scot-free for hiring somebody illegally in this country, breaking the law?
WEBB: I don+óGé¼-£t think it is a question of letting somebody walk scot-free. It+óGé¼-£s a question of accountability. When somebody is hiring somebody to mow a lawn or something like that, it+óGé¼-£s a lot different than a Wal-Mart of a Tyson+óGé¼-£s.
MATTHEWS: No, how about a sweatshop? How about working on a farm?
WEBB: Well, that is what I said, larger employer where you have ...
MATTHEWS: OK, you+óGé¼-£re saying if somebody hires a maid and they don+óGé¼-£t check their papers?
WEBB: Yes, I think it is very complicated.
MATTHEWS: Do you think they should check their papers?
WEBB: Yes, I mean, I think it+óGé¼-£s very+óGé¼GÇ¥I think it+óGé¼-£s very complicated. You know, I think ...
MATTHEWS: Why is it complicated?
WEBB: Complicated to check people+óGé¼-£s papers because you can generate papers. We saw this with Simpson-Mazzoli. You see it time and again. You can generate papers. A tamper-proof I.D. card and the ability to do something with it is probably a better approach, which individuals are able to check that is the question. I don+óGé¼-£t know the answer to that.
MATTHEWS: Do you think that a person hiring a person who might be illegal because of their accent or whatever, their manner, they have a sense they may have recently arrived in the country, which is a fair estimate. Do you think that person should do due diligence to make they+óGé¼-£re here legally or just casually say, sure, I+óGé¼-£ll buy your word here?
WEBB: Really ...
MATTHEWS: Should they pursue due diligence here?
WEBB: ... that is a question of practicality. That+óGé¼-£s the way people are hired, yes.
MATTHEWS: Well, let me tell you something. People have been turned down for attorney general, a number of them. People have had big trouble in American politics for hiring people illegally, and they can+óGé¼-£t give casual answers like, oh, it is complicated. They+óGé¼-£ve got to admit they+óGé¼-£ve broke the law or they didn+óGé¼-£t? Why is it complicated for you?
WEBB: No, it+óGé¼-£s complicated in terms of enforcement. If anybody has been in Southern California or southern Arizona and seen the extent of this, it+óGé¼-£s just an extraordinarily difficult thing. If you+óGé¼-£re going to large scale employers, it is a totally different thing.
MATTHEWS: OK, speaking of employment, let me ask you, Mr. Miller, should Virginia be a right to work state as it is, of change and should we outlaw+óGé¼GÇ¥rid of 14-B that allows states to be right to work? Where are you on the labor issue, the key labor issue?
MILLER: I don+óGé¼-£t think we should change right to work, but I also
think we need some major changes in our federal law. I support the union
checkoff, and important piece of legislation, that would not allow people -
and bar (ph) people want to organize this.
MATTHEWS: But this is a different question. You believe we shouldn+óGé¼-£t have closed shops? We basically should be able to have right to work?
MILLER: I accept the state of Virginia right now, but there is a chance to give workers the chance to organize. We need the union checkoff legislation so that workers aren+óGé¼-£t obstructed who want to unionize.
MATTHEWS: Do you think we should have right to work laws in Virginia as we have them now?
WEBB: I think we should have mandatory unionization, but I do believe we need to reinvigorate the union movement.
MATTHEWS: But you agree with the law of Virginia as it stands.
WEBB: Yes.
MATTHEWS: OK, let me go on to gay marriage. Do you think Virginia+óGé¼-£s ban, that is on the ballot right now, should be approved or not? Would you vote for it, are you going to vote for it?
WEBB: No, I+óGé¼-£m not going to. I think it is a bad amendment. It+óGé¼-£s a bad amendment, first of all, as someone who used to write legislation, as a committee council. The second paragraph is extremely vague. On the other side of it, or in addition to that ...
MATTHEWS: ... Are you for gay marriage?
WEBB: I think, I+óGé¼-£m very civil unions, and I believe that this issue was deliberately ...
MATTHEWS: ... This would not permit civil unions. So you+óGé¼-£re for civil unions.
WEBB: I am for civil unions and I+óGé¼-£m opposed to the amendment.
MATTHEWS: Are you for civil unions Mr. Miller?
MILLER: I support civil unions and I also oppose the amendment. This is the first time Virginia+óGé¼-£s have ever considered an amendment which would limit the rights of individuals. It is a bad idea and I oppose it.
MATTHEWS: Let me ask about the don+óGé¼-£t ask, there are a lot of military families and I+óGé¼-£m sure some gay people as well, in Virginia. Do you like the don+óGé¼-£t ask, don+óGé¼-£t tell rule or do you think it is stupid?
WEBB: I support the don+óGé¼-£t ask, don+óGé¼-£t tell rule. I think that the military is a different environment. It+óGé¼-£s one where we+óGé¼-£ve always had gays in the military, we always will.
MATTHEWS: So you should keep your orientation to yourself if it is homosexual?
WEBB: At this point, yes. I just think it+óGé¼-£s a practicality issue.
MATTHEWS: OK, let me go to Mr. Miller, should we keep don+óGé¼-£t ask, don+óGé¼-£t tell?
MILLER: No, it needs to be modified, Chris. It is costing us $200 million or more a year, it+óGé¼-£s costing us the ability to recruit and retain very capable people. We need to have everyone serve in the military. We need to have all of the stake holders, including the military, sit down and come up with a more practical way.
MATTHEWS: Well, do you think people should be able to be openly gay in the military?
MILLER: Yes.
MATTHEWS: Yes, well we have a difference in opinion. We will be right back with Jim Webb and Harris Miller. Not many differences except on that one. And later, Zarqawi is dead. What does it mean for U.S. troops in Iraq?
+óGé¼+ôNew Yorker+óGé¼-¥ editor David Remnick, what a guy, is going to be here.
This is HARDBALL on MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL. For more of our exclusive debate between the two men who want to beat Virginia Senator George Allen this fall, we are back with business man Harris Miller and former Navy secretary Jim Webb. Mr. Webb would you have a question for Mr. Miller?
WEBB: Harris, there have been a lot of reports in the paper about your career as a lobbyist. I+óGé¼-£m just wondering how you would fix the problem with, we now have 33,000 lobbyists in Washington, double the number at the beginning of this administration.
MILLER: We need to get rid of several things, Jim, number one we need to get rid of the special interest projects, the so-called pork barrel. I+óGé¼-£ve said publicly I would vote against every one of them. I would make an alliance with Republicans to do that, people like John McCain. Secondly, I would prohibit any gifts, any gifts, to Congressmen or Senators. George Allen makes $165,000 a year. He doesn+óGé¼-£t need someone to buy him lunch.
Thirdly, I would try to get public funding for TV campaigns. You know Jim, you and I are out raising money all the time so we can pay for TV time, I think that+óGé¼-£s one part of politics we don+óGé¼-£t like. I think all other countries allow their candidates some free TV air time to get their views out there. We need to bring that to this country too.
MATTHEWS: OK, your question for Mr. Webb.
MILLER: Jim, you said recently when asked why you supported George Bush over Al Gore and George Allen over Chuck Robb that you experienced some Clinton fatigue. Could you tell us what was fatiguing about the Clinton administration and the peace and prosperity that existed in 2000?
WEBB: Well, I think what we+óGé¼-£re living in right now is a different country than we had in 2000, in every sense of the word. We are undergoing a tremendous sea change in this country in terms of even how we define liberal and conservative and where the party alliances have laid out.
One of the things that has been true about my experience having been essentially a Reagan Democrat is there are a lot of people like me who went over to the Republicans, basically on foreign policy issues, national security issues, who are ready to come home because they were never comfortable with the Republican Party on issues of economic justice and social fairness. So, I think we will see a continuation of that and that+óGé¼-£s really the important issue.
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you a couple of questions, both in a row, first of all should Hillary run for president? Jim Webb?
WEBB: I think it is too early for me or anyone else in the Democratic party to endorse anyone.
MATTHEWS: No, but should she run?
WEBB: She has every right to run and she has the money to run.
MATTHEWS: How about answering the question, should she run?
WEBB: She wants to and so she should, that+óGé¼-£s really the answer.
MATTHEWS: OK, let me ask you Mr. Miller, should Hillary Clinton run for president?
MILLER: I would vote for Governor Mark Warner in 2008, but I+óGé¼-£m a great admirer of Senator Clinton.
MATTHEWS: Should she run for president?
MILLER: If she wants to, she should
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about Donald Rumsfeld. You said he should be axed right now, he should be fired, right Mr. Miller?
MILLER: Absolutely.
MATTHEWS: Mr. Webb?
WEBB: I wouldn+óGé¼-£t be sorry to see Donald Rumsfeld go. But then what is next? The problem is the administration, not one single individual.
MATTHEWS: Would you like to see the president remove the responsibilities and duties of the Vice President, just take all his duties away from him? He doesn+óGé¼-£t have any under the constitution, just stop giving him jobs?
WEBB: I think we elect people based on how they have their relationships and that+óGé¼-£s the way George Bush runs the presidency.
MATTHEWS: So we+óGé¼-£re stuck with him. Let me ask you both the question, is George Allen qualified to be president of the United States? Mr. Webb?
WEBB: I believe George Allen has shown over the last five years that he is not particularly qualified to be a senator. I thought we were going to get a leader there and we didn+óGé¼-£t. Other people can decide, but that is my view.
MATTHEWS: Mr. Miller?
MILLER: I fought hard to keep George Allen from coming to the Senate in the first place. He was not a very good governor and he has been a disaster as a senator. He said he is bored with his job. He+óGé¼-£s been there while gasoline prices have doubled, our deficits gone to $9 trillion. And he+óGé¼-£s spent most of the time traveling around the country side and not even spending time in his home state of Virginia.
MATTHEWS: OK, final question, if you had to vote right now on a piece of paper in front of you, Hillary or Mark Warner, who would you vote for? Mr. Miller?
MILLER: Mark Warner.
MATTHEWS: Mr. Webb?
WEBB: I remain undecided.
MATTHEWS: Ahhh, OK, thank you very much. Good luck to both of you. Thank you Harris Miller, thank you Jim Webb. I think the only thing you guys disagreed about tonight is whether we say don+óGé¼-£t ask, don+óGé¼-£t tell. Anyway, the Virginia primary is coming up this Tuesday, June 13. If you are a Virginia Democrat, get out there and vote. We can say that here.